Search This Blog

Life update: where I've been. Stories sold. Christmas already?!

I disappeared into a medical writing assignment for a few
weeks, then crawled out to find the house in chaos and the hurly-burly of the Christmas
season well underway. All the neighbors strung lights in their yards when I
wasn't looking; Christmas jingles play in the stores, lights and wreaths and
Christmas trees are everywhere. Each year this season sneaks up upon me; this
year it seemed to wait till the last minute before jumping out, waving its
arms, crying Ha! Gotcha! Did you forget
about me?

My mind filled with the technical details of a dozen scientific
journal articles. . . I nearly did forget.

But the Christmas tree is up, the stockings are hung, and
tonight was my daughters’ annual Christmas music recital. Both acquitted
themselves well, if I do say so myself. My eldest finished a scarf she’d been
weaving for me on her little loom kit, and I proudly wore it to the concert and
all evening. Dinner out (barbecue), bath
time, bed. . . Outside the nights dip ever deeper, ever blacker, as the year tilts
toward the solstice. But inside all is warm and snug. Throughout the
neighborhood, all along the side streets, golden lights glow in bare branches.

I sold two stories recently. I signed the contracts for both
this week. These sales make me so excited and happy—I can’t even tell you. I’m
dancing inside, like a kid on Christmas.

I turn 40 this week.

In a week and a half, family members will drive hundreds of
miles to see us. My kids are practically jumping out of their skin at the
thought of seeing their beloved cousins again. My husband the gourmet is busy
planning the menus of holiday feasts.

There are terrible things going on in the world. The news is
full of them. It’s been full of them for weeks, for months now, it seems--an unending drumbeat of horror. I haven’t
even been able to bring myself to read the latest news articles about
state-sanctioned torture.

For now, I just want to withdraw. I want to push all those
news headlines away, to not click on the articles. I don’t want to work or
clean the house. For now, I just want to read and write. Write and read. For
this last week before the kids’ winter break and the onrush of (welcome)
visitors and the true hurly-burly of the Christmas holidays.

Comments

"Outside the nights dip ever deeper, ever blacker, as the year tilts toward the solstice. But inside all is warm and snug. Throughout the neighborhood, all along the side streets, golden lights glow in bare branches."

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hmm, I meant to start
publishing these short fiction round-ups monthly, but time got away from me (as
it often does), and it seems I’m on a bimonthly schedule again. As always,
there was way too much good fiction published for any one person to read, and I
know that I missed a lot. But here’s a selection of some of what I did read,
and love, in February and March. Stories
of Magic, Stories of Horror“Dustdaughter”by Inda Lauryn in UncannyMoonless
midnight. She had never heard it described that way, usually her father making
the declaration “At least they won’t see the dirt on her too good.” A teacher
using her as an example of what you would look like coming out of the Le Brea
Tar Pits—when she became the official playground monster. Her mother not going
to the school to raise hell against a teacher becoming her child’s bully.
“That’s the way it is for girls like us, Dust. Might as well get used to people
treating you this way.”But moonless
midnight felt like part of the sky. Like the …

October is here, first drizzly and gray, now bright but sharp with cold. It’s time to bundle up in sweaters, make stews and soups, and cuddle with
good stories and a cup of tea. Here to keep you company are some stories I
loved from late summer and the earliest fall.

Stories
of darkness, healing, love, and passion

“The Last Epic Pub Crawl of the Brothers Pennyfeather” by L. Chan in The Dark Chan is one of the most wildly
inventive writers I know, and this story shows off his pyrotechnics of
imagination, his poetic language and humor. . . as well as a delicacy of
emotion that is all the more powerful for its restraint. Bob and Bill are the
Brothers Pennyfeather, a duo of ghost hunters/exorcists who have been trained
in their Work by their mother. After a job gone terribly wrong and mutual
absence, the brothers reunite for one last epic pub crawl. Creepy ghosts abound
at each pub they visit, and brotherly snark and banter enliven the night. But
there’s something much deeper going on than a…

Midway through June and I’m
behind on my fiction reading (and writing!) as usual. Still, here is some of
what I’ve read in the past few months.

SHORT STORIES

Necessary Reading“Riverbed” by Omar El Akkad
at Terraform (reprinted from the anthology, A People’s Future of the
United States”)

In a future America ravaged by
climate change and decline, Dr. Khadija Singh has returned to Riverbed, an
internment camp in Billings, MO where Muslim-Americans were interned purely for
their religion. Singh and her family were Sikh, not Muslim—yet that matter was
overlooked in light of their complexion and appearance, and they were rounded
up and held there as well. Now it’s decades later; Dr. Singh has Canadian
citizenship and America is ashamed of what it did—the old internment facility now
houses a museum, tours are given, and events planned for the 50th
anniversary of the facility. But Dr. Singh has not come back to participate in
commemoration events. She’s not in a mood for forgiveness. She’s seeki…